This is Brad Walker’s final blog piece reflecting on his career path that has spanned several countries, multiple non-profits, and a range of issues that have brought him to where he is today. We are grateful of the work he has done on behalf of MCE and wish him the best of luck!

For anyone who finds themselves drawn serendipitously or intentionally to environmental work, it is no secret that it can be discouraging.

In our political climate, which has grown increasingly hostile and corporatized, environmental activism often is reactive. We are immobilized to make change and proactively protect our planet because special interests have captured the very mechanisms of our democracy.

As the saying goes, we occasionally win the environmental battles but we are losing the war.

We cannot address environmental problems unless we have the foresight to address larger (and arguably more insidious) root causes – the relentless pursuit of profit over community health, the myth of unlimited growth, the corporatization of our public resources like clean water and air, and the buying and selling of our democracy.

The past few years have been difficult – we have seen unprecedented rollbacks in environmental protections, the widening of the wealth gap, and the spending of untold sums on political campaigns. But when I look to the future of our movement, Isee hope if all environmentalists would also become fervent defenders of democracy.

My second career path

I have had a very interesting and satisfying second career working on the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) and more recently the the Missouri River, which has spanned over 11 years and three organizations. In retrospect it may have been pre-destined to happen.… Read the rest

Over the last 40 years the average citizen’s income, security, education, health and prospects for their children’s future has eroded. It has become increasingly difficult to protect the environment and the rights of the majority of real people to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” in this country. During the same time, corporations have become more monopolistic, powerful, large, and politically influential. Is there a correlation to these diverging paths?

Figure 1: Convention Agenda and Attendance Pins

Between August 3 and 6, 2017 MCE staff members Caitlin Zera and Brad Walker attended a Democracy Convention in Minneapolis, MN along with hundreds of other people from across the country. This was the third such convention since 2011. Thirteen organizations convened the convention that was broken into eight topic conferences covering a wide range of topics: including Community and Worker Power, Democratizing the Constitution, Earth Rights & Global Democracy, Democratizing our Schools, Colleges & Universities, Media Democracy, Peace & Democracy, Racial Justice, and Voting Rights & Open Government. The underlying theme was how to address the increasing negative impact of overwhelming corporate influence on all layers of government. Over 140 presentations with 150 speakers were offered, typically on 75 minute tracks with ten concurrent presentations.

The one significant difficulty with the convention was that too many interesting topics were offered concurrently; meaning we had to chose to attend one presentation from up to ten topics we may have wanted to learn about. Presentations were not recorded so there is no opportunity to watch the ones that were missed.… Read the rest

MCE released the Our Future? Report in April 2012. Three years later, we are still headed down a precarious path. The report continues to be an accurate description of what is needed to move to real sustainability. Several of the major problems identified in the report have unfortunately increased in severity, including national economic disparity, the influence of money in our politics, and climate change. On the positive side, people, governments, and even corporations have increased their calls for sustainability. We see a growing recognition that things are not quite right and that we need to do something different, even if people also seem not to know who to follow or what to do. We encourage you to read the Our Future? Report, as well as this article, so that you can better understand what a sustainable river and world could look like and what it will take to attain it.

Origin of Our Future?

I’ll be frank: before 2006 I had only seen the Upper Mississippi River (UMR) a few times, typically from my car, and I knew next to nothing about it. My primary impressions were from an engineer’s perspective, admiring the construction of the numerous bridges and dams. My perspective has been flipped on its (my) head over the last 9 years while advocating for restoration of both the Upper Mississippi River and the Missouri River.

If your exposure to our major rivers has also been limited to the occasional glance out the window as you travel across them, you might be surprised to know that they’re in bad shape and largely getting worse.

It is the abuse of our rivers that prompted me to work on two major reports on the Upper Mississippi River (UMR). In 2010, after the publication of the first report called Big Price – Little Benefit regarding a Corps project to construct new locks on the UMR and Illinois River, I started to develop a report that focused more on environmental issues related to the UMR. It was obvious that the UMR was not improving and that decision-makers at all levels were focused almost exclusively upon economic growth (and at almost any cost). The question was, how can we make the connection between a healthy restored river environment and a better economy? Ultimately, it was decided that we needed to expand our message to cover economic influences because most of our environmental problems have their origin in economically-motivated (and politically-influenced) decisions.… Read the rest

You might wonder why an environmental organization wants you to know about and support a constitutional amendment that – on the face of it – has nothing to do with the environment.To be effective on environmental issues, the Missouri Coalition for the Environment (MCE) relies on a thriving democratic system. The influence of money in the democratic process, the concentration of wealth, and the “personhood” of corporations hampers, and sometimes stifles completely, our ability to be effective on environmental issues. We are reaching the point of a captured government where the democratic process is an illusion. All of us need to get involved. That is why, on August 28, 2014, MCE sent out an E-Alert that included a request for people to sign a petition supporting a Senate Joint Resolution 19 (S.J.Res.19), which was a Constitutional Amendment. The text of the Amendment can be seen here.… Read the rest

A new trade agreement that has been negotiated in secret for seven years called the Trans Pacific Partnership or TPP began to emerge out of the shadows last month. The few, leaked portions of the TPP have enraged citizens across the planet because of the power it removes from citizens and their governments and gives to private corporations.

Trade negotiators representing more than 600 corporations have also pushed for “fast track” authority which would gut Congress’ ability to read the provisions of the agreement – and force them to vote on it without knowing its contents.

The TPP may appear to be a topic far-a-field from the rivers I normally focus on, however, many connections link global trade, the rivers and overseas shipping. The grain and energy shippers use the rivers to transport a large portion of their commodities abroad. Some of these shippers are transnational corporations that have subsidiaries in other countries and are shipping products back to the U.S. Trade is, and has long been, primarily about the profits of corporations and there are powerful people who believe that exploiting the rivers to an even higher degree is key to increasing the efficiency of our trading capability.… Read the rest